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MARTYRED ARMENIA 



BY 

FA'IZ EL-GHUSEIN 

Bedouin Notable of Damascus 



Translated from the Original Arabic 



NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 

MCDXVIII 
PRICE 25 CENTS 



MARTYRED ARMENIA 



MARTYRED 
ARMENIA 



BY 

FA'IZ EL-GHUSEIN 

BEDOUIN NOTABLE OF DAMASCUS 



Translated from the Original Arabic 
All Rights of Translation Reserved 



NEW YORK 

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 

MCMXVIII 



FOEEWOED 

I AM a Bedouin, a son of one of the Heads of 
the tribe of El-Sulut, who dwell in El-Lejat, in 
the Hauran territory. Like other sons of tribal 
Chiefs. I entered the Tribal School at Constanti- 
nople, and subsequently the Eoyal College. On 
the completion of my education, I was attached to 
the staff of the Vali of Syria (or Dar.ascus), on 
which I remained for a long while. I was then 
Kaimakam of Mamouret-el-Aziz (Kharpout), hold- 
ing this post for three and a half years, after which 
I practised as a lawyer at Damascus, my partners 
being Shukri Bey El-Asli and Abdul- Wahhab Bey 
El-Ingiizi. I next became a member of the General 
Assembly at that place, representing Hauran, and 
later a member of the Committee of that Assembly. 
On the outbreak of the war, I was ordered to resume 
my previous career, that is, the duties of Kaimakam, 
but I did not comply, as I found the practice of 
the law more advantageous in many ways and more 
tranquil. 

I was denounced by an informer as being a 
delegate of a Society constituted in the Lebanon 
with the object of achieving the independence of the 
Arab people, under the protection of England and 
France, and of inciting the tribes against the 
Turkish Government. On receipt of this denuncia- 
tion, I was arrested by the Government, thrown into 
prison, and subsequently sent in chains, with a 



vi Foreword 

company of police and gendarmes, to Aaliya, where 
persons accused of political offences were tried. I 
was acquitted, but as the Government disregarded 
the decisions given in such cases, and was resolved 
on the removal and destruction of all enlightened 
Arabs — whatever the circumstances might be — it 
was thought necessary that I should be despatched 
to Erzeroum, and Jemal Pasha sent me thither with 
an officer and ^ve of the regular troops. When I 
reached Diarbekir, Hasan Kaleh, at Erzeroum, 
was being pressed by the Eussians, and the Vali of 
Diarbekir was ordered to detain me at that place. 
After twenty-two days' confinement in prison 
for no reason, I was released; I hired a 
house and remained at Diarbekir for six and 
a half months, seeing and hearing from the 
most reliable sources all that took place in regard 
to the Armenians, the majority of my informants 
being superior officers and officials, or Notables of 
Diarbekir and its dependencies, as well as others 
from Van, Bitlis, Mamouret-el-Aziz, Aleppo and 
Erzeroum. The people of Van had been in Diar- 
bekir since the occupation of their territory by the 
Eussians, whilst the people and officials of Bitlis had 
recently emigrated thither. Many of the Erzeroum 
officers came to Diarbekir on military or private 
business, whilst Mamouret-el-Aziz was near by, and 
many people came to us from thence. As I had 
formerly been a Kaimakam in that Vilayet, I had a 
large acquaintance there and heard all the news. 
More especially, the time which I passed in prison 
with the heads of the tribes in Diarbekir enabled me 
to study the movement in its smallest details. The 
war must needs come to an end after a while, and 



Foreword vii 

it will then be plain to readers of this book that all 
1 have written is the truth, and that it contains only 
a small part of the atrocities committed by the 
Turks against the hapless Armenian people. 

After passing this time at Diarbekir I fled, both 
to escape from captivity and from fear induced by 
what had befallen me from some of the fanatical 
Turks. After great sufferings, during which I was 
often exposed to death and slaughter, I reached 
Basra, and conceived the idea of publishing this 
book, as a service to the cause of truth and of a 
people oppressed by the Turks, and also, as I have 
stated at the close, to defend the faith of Islam 
against the cuarge of fanaticism which will be 
brought against it by Europeans. May God guide 
us in the right way. 

/ have written this preface at Bombay, on the 
1st of September, 1916. 

fI'IZ EL-GHUSEIN. 



MARTYRED ARMENIA 



MARTYRED ARMENIA 



THE NAEEATIVE 

OUTLINE OF Armenian History. — In past ages 
the Armenian race was, like other nations, 
not possessed of an autonomous government, until 
God bestowed upon them a man, named Haig, a bold 
leader, who united the Armenians and formed them 
into an independent state. This took place before 
the Christian era. The nation preserved their inde- 
pendence for a considerable time, reaching the high- 
est point of their glory and prosperity under their 
king Dikran, who constituted the city of Dikranok- 
erta — Diarbekir — the capital of his Government. 
Armenia remained independent in the time of the 
Romans, extending her rule over a part of Asia 
Minor and Syria, and a portion of Persia, but, in 
consequence of the protection afforded by the Ar- 
menians to certain kings who were hostile to Rome, 
the Romans declared war against her, their troops 
entered her capital, and from that time Armenian 
independence was lost. The country remained toss- 
ing on the waves of despotism, now independent, 
now subjected to foreign rule, until its conquest 
by the Arabs and subsequently by the Ottoman 
power. 

The Armenian Population. — The number of the 



2 Martyred Armenia 

Armenians in Ottoman territory does not exceed 
1,900,000 souls. I have borrowed this figure from a 
book by a Turkish writer, who states that it is the 
official computation made by the Government pre- 
vious to the Balkan war ; he estimates the Armeni- 
ans residing in Eoumelia at 400,000, those in Otto- 
man Asia at 1,500,000. The Armenians in Eussia 
and Persia are said not to exceed 3,000,000, thus 
bringing the total number of Armenians in the world 
to over four and a half millions. 

The Vilayets Inhabited by Armenians. — -The 
Vilayets inhabited by Armenians are Diarbekir, 
Van, Bitlis, Erzeroum, Mamouret-el-Aziz, Sivas, 
Adana, Aleppo, Trebizond, Broussa, and Constan- 
tinople. The numbers in Van, Bitlis, Adana, Diar- 
bekir, Erzeroum, and Kharpout were greater than 
those in the other Vilayets, but in all cases they 
were fewer than the Turks and Kurds, with the ex- 
ception of Van and Bitlis, where they were equal or 
superior in number. In the province of Moush (Vil- 
ayet of Bitlis) they were more numerous than the 
Kurds; all industry and commerce in those parts 
was in Armenian hands ; their agriculture was more 
prosperous; they were much more advanced than 
the Turks and Kurds in those Vilayets; and the 
large number of their schools, contrasted with the 
few schools of their alien feUow countrymen, is a 
proof of their progress and of the decline of the 
other races. 

Armenian Societies. — The Armenians possess 
learned and political Societies, the most important 
of which are the ^'Tashnagtzian'* and the *^Hun- 
chak.'' The programme of these two Societies is 
to make every effort and adopt ^very means to 



Martyred Armenia 8 

attain that end from which no Armenian ever 
swerves, namely, administrative independence 
under the supervision of the Great Powers of 
Europe. I have enquired of many Armenians whom 
I have met, but 1 have not found one who said that 
he desired political independence, the reason being 
that in most of the Vilayets which they inhabit the 
Armenians are less numerous than the Kurds, and 
if they became independent the advantage to the 
Kurds would be greater than to themselves. Hith- 
erto, the Kurds have beon in a very degraded state 
of ignorance ; disorder is supreme in their territory, 
and the cities are in ruins. The Armenians, there- 
fore, prefer to remain under Turkish rule, on con- 
dition that the administration is carried on under 
the supervision of the Great European Powers, as 
they place no confidence in the promises of the 
Turks, who take back to-day what they bestowed 
yesterday. These two Societies thus earnestly 
labour for the propagation of this view amongst the 
Armenians, and for the attainment of their object 
by every means. I have been told by an Armenian 
officer that one of these Societies proposes to attain 
its end by means of internal revolts, but the policy 
of the second is to do so by peaceful means only. 

The above is a brief summary of the policy of 
these Societies. It is said, however, that the pro- 
gramme of one of them aims at Armenian political 
independence. 

Any who desire further details as to Armenian 
history or societies should refer to their historical 
books. 

The Armenian Massacres. — History does not re- 
cord that the Kurds, fellow-countrymen of the Ar- 



4 Martyred Armenia 

menians in the Vilayets inhabited by both peoples, 
rose in confli<?t with the latter, or that the Kurds 
plundered the property of the Armenians, or out- 
raged their women, until the year 1888, when they 
rose by order of the Turkish Government and 
slaughtered Armenians in Van,, Kharpout, Erze- 
roum, and Moush. Again, in the time of Abdul- 
Hamid II., in 1896, when the Armenians rose and en- 
tered the Ottoman Bank at Constantinople, with the 
object of frightening the Sultan and compelling him 
to proclaim the Constitution, he ordered a mas- 
sacre at Constantinople and in the Vilayets. But 
hitherto there has been no instance of the people of 
Turkey proceeding to the slaughter of Armenians 
on a general scale unless incited and constrained to 
do so by the Government. In the massacre of 1896, 
15,000 were killed in Constantinople itself, and 
300,000 in the Vilayets. 

Armenians were also killed in the Vilayet of 
Adana, some months after the proclamation of the 
Constitution, but this slaughter did not extend be- 
yond the two Vilayets of Adana and Aleppo, where 
the influence of Abdul-Hamid was paramount till 
the year 1909. I do not, however, find any detailed 
account of this massacre, or any information as to 
the numbers killed. 

The goods and cattle of the Armenians were 
plundered, and their houses wrecked, more espe- 
cially in the slaughter of 1896, but many of their 
countrymen* protected them and concealed them in 
their houses from the officials of the Government. 

The Government consistently inflamed the Mos- 



Presumablj. amongst the Turks and Kurds. — Translator. 



Martyred Armenia 5 

lem Kurds and Turks against them, making use of 
the Faith of Islam as a means to attain their object 
in view of the ignorance of the Mohammedans as to 
the true laws of their religion. 

Declaration of the Ottoman Government. — 
'^Inasmuch as the Armenians are committing acts 
opposed to the laws and taking advantage of all 
occasions to disturb the Government; as they have 
been found in possession of prohibited arms, bombs, 
and explosive materials, prepared with the object 
of internal revolt; as they have killed Moslems in 
Van, and have aided the Eussian armies at a time 
when the Government is in a state of war with 
England, France, and Russia; and in the apprehen- 
sion that the Armenians may, as is their habit, lend 
themselves to seditious tumult and revolt; the Gov- 
ernment have decreed that all the Armenians shall 
be collected and despatched to the Vilayets of Mosul, 
Syria, and Deir-el-Zur, their persons, goods and 
honour being safeguarded. The necessary orders 
have been given for ensuring their comfort, and for 
their residence in those territories until the termi- 
nation of the war." 

Such is the official declaration of the Ottoman 
Government in regard to the Armenians. But the 
secret resolution was that companies of militia 
should be formed to assist the gendarmes in the 
slaughter of the Armenians, that these should be 
killed to the last man, and that the work of murder 
and destruction should take place under the super- 
vision of trusty agents of the Unionists, who were 
known for their brutality. Reshid Bey was ap- 
pointed to the Vilayet of Diarbekir and invested 
with extensive powers, having at his disposal a gang 



6 Martyred Armenia 

of notorious murderers, such as Ahmed Bey El- 
Serzi, Euslidi Bey, Khalil Bey, and others of this 
description. 

The reason for this decision, as it was alleged, 
was that the Armenians residing in Europe and 
in Egj^pt had sent twenty of their devoted partisans 
to kill Talaat, Enver, and others of the Unionist 
leaders; the attempt had failed, as a certain Ar- 
menian, a traitor to his nation and a friend of Bedri 
Bey, the Chief of the Public Security at Constanti- 
nople (or according to others, Azmi Bey), divulged 
the matter and indicated the Armenian agents, who 
had arrived at Constantinople. The latter were 
arrested and executed, but secretly, in order that it 
might not be said that there were men attempting 
to kill the heads of the Unionist Society. 

Another alleged reason also was that certain 
Armenians, whom the Government had collected 
from the Vilayets of Aleppo and Adrianople and 
had sent off to complete their military service, fled, 
with their arms, to Zeitonn^ where they assembled, 
to the number of sixty young men, and commenced 
to resist the Government and to attack wayfarers. 
The Government despatched a military force under 
Fakhry Pasha, who proceeded to the spot, destroyed 
a part of Zeitoun, and killed men, women and chil- 
dren, without encountering opposition an the part 
of the Armenians. He collected the men and women 
and sent them off with parties of troops, who killed 
many of the men, whilst as for the women, do not 
ask what was their fate. They were delivered over 
to the Ottoman soldiery ; the children died of hunger 
and thirst ; not a man or woman reached Syria ex- 
cept the halt and blind, who were unable to keep 



Martyred Armenia 7 

themselves alive; the young men were all slaugh- 
tered; and the good-looking women fell into the 
hands of the Turkish youths. 

Emigrants from Roumelia were conveyed to 
Zeitoun and established there, the name of that place 
being changed to ^^Keshadiya," so that nothing 
should remain to remind the Turks of the Armenian 
name. During our journey from Hamah we saw 
many Armenian men and women, sitting under small 
tents which they had constructed from sheets, rugs, 
etc. Their condition was most pitiable, and how 
could it be otherwise! Many of these had been used 
to sit only on easy chairs [lit., rocking-chairs], amid 
luxurious furniture, in houses built in the best style, 
well arranged and splendidly furnished. I saw, as 
others saw also, many Armenian men and women 
in goods-wagons on the railway between Aleppo 
and Hamah, herded together in a way which moved 
compassion. 

After my arrival at Aleppo, and two days^ stay 
there, we took the train to a place called Ser-Arab- 
Pounari. I was accompanied by five Armenians, 
closely guarded, and despatched to Diarbekir. We 
walked on our feet thence to Seruj, where we 
stopped at a Jchdn [rest-house] filled with Armenian 
women and children, with a few sick men. These 
women were in a deplorable state, as they had done 
the journey from Erzeroum on foot, taking a long 
while to arrive at Seruj. I talked with them in 
Turkish, and they told me that the gendarmes with 
them had brought them to places where there was 
no water, refusing to tell them where water was to 
be found until they had received money as the price. 
Some of them, who were pregnant, had given birth 



8 Martyred Armenia 

on the way, and had abandoned their infants in the 
uninhabited wastes. Most of these women had left 
their children behind, either in despair, or owing to 
illness or weakness which made them unable to carry 
them, so they threw them on the ground ; some from 
natural affection could not do this and so perished 
in the desert, not parted from their infants. They 
told me that there were some among them who had 
not been used to walk for a single hour, having been 
brought up in luxury, with men to wait on them and 
women to attend them. These had fallen into the 
hands of the Kurds, who recognize no divine law, 
and who live on lofty mountains and in dense forests 
like beasts of prey; their honour was outraged and 
they died by brutal violence, many of them, killing 
themselves rather than sacrifice their virtue to these 
ravening wolves. 

We then proceeded in carts from Seruj to El-Raha 
(Urfa). On the way I saw crowds going on foot, 
whom from a distance I took for troops marching 
to the field of battle. On approaching, I found they 
were Armenian women, walking barefoot and weary, 
placed in ranks like the gendarmes who preceded 
and followed them. Whenever one of them lagged 
behind, a gendarme would beat her with the butt of 
his rifle, throwing her on her face, till she rose ter- 
rified and rejoined her companions. But if one 
lagged from sickness, she was either abandoned, 
alone in the wilderness, without help or comfort, to 
be a prey to wild beasts, or a gendarme ended her 
life by a bullet. 

On arrival at Urfa, we learned that the Govern- 
ment had sent a force of gendarmes and police to 
the Armenian quarters of the town to collect their 



Martyi^ed Armenia 9 

arms, subsequently dealing with these people as with 
others. As they were aware of what had happened 
to their kinsmen — the khans at Urfa being full of 
women and children — they did not give up their 
arms, but showed armed resistance, killing one man 
of the police and three gendarmes. The authorities 
of Urfa applied for a force from Aleppo, and by 
order of Jemal Pasha — the executioner of Syria — 
Fakhry Pasha came with, cannon.. He turned the 
Armenian quarters into a waste place, killing the 
men and the children, and great numbers of the 
women, except such as yielded themselves to share 
the fate of their sisters — expulsion on foot to Deir- 
el-Zur, after the Pasha and his officers had selected 
the prettiest amongst them. Disease was raging 
among them; they were outraged by the Turks and 
Kurds; and hunger and thirst completed their ex- 
termination. 

After leaving Urfa, we again saw throngs of 
women, exhausted by fatigue and misery, dying of 
hunger and thirst, and we saw the bodies of the dead 
lying by the roadside. 

On our arrival at a place near a village called 
Kara Jevren, about six hours distant from Urfa, we 
stopped at a spring to breakfast and drink. I went 
a little apart, towards the source, and came upon a 
most appalling spectacle. A woman, partly un- 
clothed, was lying prone, her chemise disordered 
and red with blood, with four bullet-wounds in her 
breast. I could not restrain myself, but wept bit- 
terly. As I drew out a handkerchief to wipe away 
my tears, and looked round to see whether any of 
my companions had observed me, I saw a child not 
more than eight years old, lying on his face, his head 



10 Martyred Armenia 

cloven by an axe. This made my grief the more 
vehement, but my companions cut short my lamenta- 
tions, for I heard the officer, Aarif Eifendi, calling 
to the priest Isaac, and saying, ^^Come here at 
once,^' and I knew that he had seen something which 
had startled him. I went towards him, and what 
did I behold? Three children lying in the water, in 
terror of their lives from the Kurds, who had 
stripped them of their clothes and tortured them 
in various ways, their mother near by, moaning 
with pain and hunger. She told us her story, saying 
that she was from Erzeroum, and had been brought 
by the troops to this place with many other women 
after a journey of many days. After they had been 
plundered of money and clothing, and the prettiest 
women had been picked out and handed over to the 
Kurds, they reached this place, where Kurdish men 
and women collected and robbed them of all the 
clothes that remained on them. She herself had 
stayed here, as she was sick and her children would 
not leave her. The Kurds came upon them again 
and left them naked. The children had lain in the 
water in their terror, and she was at the point of 
death. The priest collected some articles of cloth- 
ing and gave them to the wopaan and the children; 
the officer sent a man to the post of gendarmes which 
was near by, and ordered the gendarme whom the 
man brought with him to send on the woman and 
children to Urfa, and to bury the bodies which were 
near the guardhouse. The sick woman told me that 
the dead woman refused to yield herself to outrage, 
so they killed her and she died nobly, chaste and 
pure from defilement; to induce her to yield they 



Martyred Armenia 11 

killed her son beside her, but she was firm in her re- 
solve and died heart-broken. 

In the afternoon we went on towards Kara Jev- 
ren, and one of the drivers pointed out to us some 
high mounds, surrounded by stones and rocks, say- 
ing that here Zohrab and Vartakis had been killed, 
they having been leading Notables among the Ar- 
menians, and their Deputies. 

Krikor Zohrab and Vartakis. — No one is igno- 
rant of who and what wcs Zohrab, the Armenian 
Deputy for Constantinople, his name and repute 
being celebrated after the institution of the Cham- 
ber. He used to speak with learning and reflection, 
refuting objections by powerful arguments and con- 
vincing proofs. His speeches in the Chamber were 
mostly conclusive. He was learned in all subjects, 
but especially in the science of law, as he was a 
graduate of universities and had practised at the 
Bar for many years. He was endowed with elo- 
quence and great powers of exposition; he was 
courageous, not to be turned from his purpose or 
intimidated from pursuing his national aims. When 
the Unionists realised that they were deficient in 
knowledge, understanding nothing about polity or 
administration, and not aware of the meaning of 
liberty or constitutional government, they resolved 
to return to the system of their Tartar forefathers, 
the devastation of cities and the slaughter of inno- 
cent men, as it was in that direction that their pow- 
ers lay. They sent Zohrab and his colleague Var- 
takis away from Constantinople, with orders that 
they should be killed on the way, and it was an- 
nounced that they had been murdered by a band of 
brigands. They killed them in order that it might 



12 Martyred Armenia 

not be said that Armenians were more powerful, 
more learned, and more intelligent than Turks. 
Why should such bands murder none but Armeni- 
ans? The falsity of the statement is obvious. 

Zohrab and Vartakis fell victims to their own 
courage and firmness of purpose; they were killed 
out of envy of their learning and their love for their 
own people, and for their tenacity in pursuing their 
own path. They were killed by that villain, Ahmed 
El-Serzi, one of the sworn men of the Unionists, he 
who murdered Zeki Bey; Ms story in the Ottoman 
upheaval is well known, and how the Unionists saved 
him from his fitting punishment and even from 
prison. A Kurd told me that Vartakis was one of 
the boldest and most courageous men who ever 
lived; he was chief of the Armenian bands in the 
time of Abdul-Hamid; he was wounded in the foot 
by a cannon-ball whilst the Turkish troops were 
pursuing these bands, and was imprisoned either at 
Erzeroum or at Maaden, in the Vilayet of Diarbekir. 
The Sultan Abdul-Hamid, through his officials, 
charged him to modify his attitude and acknowledge 
that he had been in error, when he should be par- 
doned and appointed to any post he might choose. 
He rejected this offer, saying, ^^I will not sell my 
conscience for a post, or say that the Government of 
Abdul-Hamid is just, whilst I see its tyranny with 
my eyes and touch it with my hand. ' ' 

It is said that the Unionists ordered that all the 
Armenian Deputies should be put to death, and the 
greater number of them were thus dealt with. It is 
reported also that Dikran Gilikian, the well-known 
writer, who was an adherent of the Committee of 
Union and Progress, was killed in return for his 



Martyred Armenia 13 

learning, capacity, and devotion to their cause. Such 
was the recompense of his services to the Unionists. 

In the evening we arrived at Kara Jevren, and 
slept there till morning. At sunrise we went on 
towards Sivrek, and half-way on the road we saw 
a terrible spectacle. The corpses of the killed were 
lying in great numbers on both sides of the road; 
here we saw a woman outstretched on the ground, 
her body half veiled by her long hair ; there, women 
lying on their faces, the dried blood blackening their 
delicate forms; there again, the corpses of men, 
parched to the semblance of charcoal by the heat of 
the sun. As we approached Sivrek, the corpses be- 
came more numerous, the bodies of children being in 
a great majority. As we arrived at Sivrek and left 
our carts, we saw one of the servants of the khan 
carrying a little infant with hair as yellow as gold, 
whom he threw behind the house. We asked him 
about it, and he said that there were three sick 
Armenian women in the house, who had lagged be- 
hind their companions, that one of them had given 
birth to this infant, but could not nourish it, owing 
to her illness. So it had died and been thrown out, 
as one might throw out a mouse. 

Demand for Eansom. — ^Whilst we were at Sivrek, 
Aarif Effendi told me— after he had been at the 
Government offices— that the Commandant of Gen- 
darmerie and the Chief of Police of that place had 
requested him to hand over to them the five 
Armenians who were with him, and that on his 
refusal they had insisted, saying that, if they were 
to reach Diarbekir in safety, they must pay a ransom 
of fifty liras for themselves. We went to the khan, 
where the officer summoned the priest Isaac and told 



14 Martyred Armenia 

him how matters stood. After speaking to his com- 
panions, the priest replied that they could pay only 
ten liras altogether, as they had no more in their 
possession. When convinced by hi? words, the 
officer took the ten liras and undert jk. to satisfy 
the others. 

This officer had a dispute with the Commandant 
of Gendarmerie at Aleppo, the latter desiring to 
take these ^ye men on the grounds that they had 
been sent with a gendarme for delivery to his office. 
Ahmed Bey, the Chief of the Irregular band at Urfa, 
also desired to take them, but the officer refused 
to give them up to him — he being a member of the 
Committee of Union and Progress- — and brought 
them in safety to Diarbekir. 

After passing the night at Sivrek we left early 
in the morning. As we approached Diarbekir the 
corpses became more numerous, and on our route 
we inet companies of women going to Sivrek under 
guard of gendarmes, weary and wretched, the traces 
of tears and misery plain on their faces — a plight 
to bring tears of blood from stones, and move the 
compassion of beasts of prey. 

What, in God's name, had these women done? 
Had they made war on the Turks, or killed even 
one of them! What was the crime of these hapless 
creatures, whose sole offence was that they were 
Armenians, skilled in the management of their 
homes and the training of their children, with no 
thought beyond the comfort of their husbands and 
sons, and the fulfilment of their duties towards 
them. 

I ask you, Moslems — is this to be counted as 
a crime ? Think for a moment. What was the fault 



Martyred Armenia 15 

of these poor women! Was it in their being superior 
to the Turkish women in every respect? Even 
assuming that their men had merited such treat- 
ment, is it right that these women should be dealt 
with in a manner from which wild beasts would 
recoil! God has said in the Koran: *^Do not load 
one with another's burthens/' that is, Let not one 
be punished for another. 

What had these weak women done, and what had 
their infants done! Can the men of the Turkish 
Government bring forward even a feeble proof to 
justify their action and to convince the people of 
Islam, who hold that action for unlawful and reject 
it! No; they can find no word to say before a 
people whose usages are founded on justice, and 
their laws on wisdom and reason. 

Is it right that these imposters, who pretend to 
be the supports of Islam and the Khildfat, the pro- 
tectors of the Moslems, should trangress the com- 
mand of God, transgress the Koran, the Traditions 
of the Prophet, and humanity! Truly, they have 
committed an act at which Islam is revolted, as 
well as all Moslems and all the peoples of the earth, 
be they Moslems, Christians, Jews, or idolaters. As 
God lives, it is a shameful deed, the like of which 
has not been done by any people counting them- 
selves as civilised. 

The Infant in the Waste. — After we had gone 
a considerable distance we saw a child of not more 
than four years old, with a fair complexion, blue 
eyes, and golden hair, with all the indications of 
luxury and pampering, standing in the sun, motion- 
less and speechless. The officer told the driver to 
stop the cart, got out alone, and questioned the 



16 Martyred Armenia 

child, who made no reply, and did not utter a word. 
The officer said r ^ ' If we take this child with us to 
Diarbekir, the authorities will take him from us, and 
he will share the fate of his people in being killed. 
It is best that we leave him. Perhaps God will move 
one of the Kurds to compassion, that he take him 
and bring him up.'' None of us could say anything 
to him; he entered the cart and we drove on, leav- 
ing the child as we found him, without speech, tears, 
or movement. Who knows of what rich man or 
Notable of the Armenians he was the son! He had 
hardly seen the light when he was orphaned by 
the slaughter of his parents and kinsmen. Those 
who should have carried him were weary of him — 
for the women were unable to carry even them- 
selves — so they had abandoned him in the waste, far 
from human habitation. Man, who shows kindness 
to beasts, and forms societies for their protection, 
can be merciless to his own kind, more especially 
to infants who can utter no complaint; he leaves 
them under the heat of the sun, thirsty and famish- 
ing, to be devoured by wild creatures. 

Leaving the boy, our hearts burning within us, 
and full of grief and anguish, we arrived before 
sunset at a kJidn some hours distant from Diar- 
bekir. There we passed the night, and in the morn- 
ing we went on amid the mangled forms of the slain. 
The same sight met our view on every side ; a man 
lying, his breast pierced by a bullet ; a woman torn 
open by lead ; a child sleeping his last sleep beside 
his mother ; a girl in the flower of her age, in a post- 
ure which told its own story. Such was our journey 
until we arrived at a canal, called Kara Pounar, near 



Martyred Armenia 17 

Diarbekir, and here we found a change in the method 
of murder and savagery. 

We saw here bodies burned to ashes. God, from 
whom no secrets are hid, knows how many young 
men and fair girls, who should have led happy lives 
together, had been consumed by fire in this ill- 
omened place. 

We had expected not to find corpses of the killed 
near to the walls of Diarbekir, but we were mis- 
taken, for we journeyed among the bodies until we 
entered the city gate. As I was informed by some 
Europeans who returned from Armenia after the 
massacres, the Government ordered the burial of all 
the bodies from the roadside when the matter had 
become the subject of comment in European news- 
papers. 

In Prisoist. — On our arrival at Diarbekir the offi- 
cer handed us over to the authorities and we were 
thrown into prison, where I remained for twenty- 
two days. During this time I obtained full informa- 
tion about the movement from one of the prisoners, 
who was a Moslem of Diarbekir, and who related to 
me what had happened to the Armenians there. I 
asked him what was the reason of the affair, why 
the Government had treated them in this way, and 
whether they had committed any act calling for their 
complete extermination. He said that, after the 
declaration of war, the Armenians, especially the 
younger men, had failed to comply with the orders 
of the Government, that most of them had evaded 
military service by flight, and had formed companies 
which they called ''Roof Companies.'' These took 
money from the wealthy Armenians for the pur- 
chase of arms, which they did not deliver to the 



18 Martyred Armenia 

authorities, but sent to their companies, until the 
leading Armenians and Notables assembled, went 
to the Government offices, and requested that these 
men should be punished as they were displeased at 
their proceedings. 

I asked whether the Armenians had killed any 
Government official, or any Turks or Kurds in Diar- 
bekir. He replied that they had killed no one, but 
that a few days after the arrival of the Yali, Eeshid 
Bey, and the Commandant of Gendarmerie, Kushdi 
Bey, prohibited arms had been found in some Ar- 
menian houses, and also in the church. On the 
discovery of these arms, the Government summoned 
some of the principal Armenians and flung them 
into prison; the spiritual authorities made repeated 
representations, asking for the release of these men, 
but the Government, far from complying with the 
request, imprisoned the ecclesiastics also, the num- 
ber of Notables thus imprisoned amounting to 
nearly seven hundred. One day the Commandant 
of Gendarmerie came and informed them that an 
Imperial Order had been issued for their banish- 
ment to Mosul, where they were to remain until the 
end of the war. They were rejoiced at this, pro- 
cured all they required in the way of money, clothes, 
and furniture, and embarked on the heleks (wooden 
rafts resting on inflated skins, used by the inhabi- 
tants of that region for travelling on the Euphrates 
and Tigris) to proceed to Mosul. After a while it 
was understood that they had all been drowned in 
the Tigris, and that none of them had reached 
Mosul. The authorities continued to send off and 
kill the Armenians, family by family, men, women 
and children, the first families sent from Diarbekir 



Martyi-ed Armenia 19 

being those of Kazazian, Tirpanjian, Minassian, and 
Kechijian, who were the wealthiest families in the 
place. Among the 700 individuals was a bishop 
named — as far as I recollect — Homandrias ; he was 
the Armenian Catholic Bishop, a venerable and 
learned old man of about eighty; they showed no 
respect to his white beard, but drowned him in the 
Tigris. 

Megerditch, the Bishop-delegate of Diarbekir, was 
also among the 700 imprisoned. When he saw what 
was happening to his people he could not endure the 
disgrace and shame of prison, so he poured petro- 
leum over himself and set it on fire. A Moslem, who 
was imprisoned for having v/ritten a letter to this 
bishop three years before the events, told me that 
he was a man of great courage and learning, devoted 
to his people, with no fear of death, but unable to 
submit to oppression and humiliation. 

Some of the imprisoned Kurds attacked the Ar- 
menians in the gaol itself, and killed two or three 
of them out of greed for their money and clothing, 
but nothing was done to bring them to account. The 
Government left only a very small number of Ar- 
menians in Diarbekir, these being such as were 
skilled in making boots and similar articles for the 
army. Nineteen individuals had remained in the 
prison, where I saw and talked with them; these, 
according to the pretence of the authorities, were 
Armenian bravoes. 

The last family deported from Diarbekir was that 
of Dunjian, about November, 1915. This family 
was protected by certain Notables of the place, from 
desire for their money, or the beauty of some of 
their women. 



20 Martyred Armenia 

DiKKAN. — This man was a member of the central 
committee of the Tashnagtzian Society in Diarbekir. 
An official of that place, who belonged to the Society 
of Union and Progress, told me that the authorities 
seized Dikran and demanded from him the names 
of his associates. He refused, and said that he 
could not give the names until the committee had 
met and decided whether or not it was proper to 
furnish this information to the Government. He 
was subjected to varieties of torture, such as putting 
his feet in irons till they swelled and he could not 
walk, plucking out his nails and eyelashes with a 
cruel instrument, etc., but he would not say a word, 
nor give the name of one of his associates. He was 
deported with the others and died nobly out of love 
for his nation, preferring death to the betrayal of 
the secrets of his brave people to the Government. 

Aghob Kaitanjian. — Aghob Kaitanjian was one 
of the Armenians imprisoned on the charge of being 
bravoes of the Armenian Society in Diarbekir, and 
in whose possession explosive material had been 
found. I often talked to him, and I asked him to 
tell me his story. He said that one day, whilst he 
was sitting in his house, a police agent knocked at 
the door and told him that the Chief of Police wished 
to see him at his office. He went there, and some 
of the police asked him about the Armenian Society 
and its bravoes. He replied that he knew nothing 
of either societies or bravoes. He was then bas- 
tinadoed and tortured in various ways for several 
days till he despaired of life, preferring death to 
a continuance of degradation. He had a knife with 
him, and when they aggravated the torture so that 
he could endure it no longer, he asked them to let 



Martyred Armenia 21 

him go to the latrine and on his return he would tell 
them all he knew about the Armenian matter. With 
the help of the police he went, and cut the arteries 
of his wrists* . . . with the object of committing 
suicide. The blood gushed out freely ; he got to the 
door of the police-office and there fainted. They 
poured water on his face and he recovered con- 
sciousness; he was brought before the officer and 
the interrogatory was renewed.* .... The Chief 
of Police was confounded at this proceeding and 
sent him to the hospital until he was cured. I saw 
the w^ounds on his hands, and they were completely 
healed. This was the story as he told it to me him- 
self. He desired me to publish it in an Armenian 
newspaper called Hdyrenik (Fatherland), which 
appears in America, in order that it may be read by 
his brother Garabet, now in that country, who had 
been convinced that the Government would leave 
none of them alive. 

I associated freely wdth the young Armenians 
who were imprisoned, and we talked much of these 
acts, the like of which, as happening to a nation such 
as theirs, have never been heard of, nor recorded in 
the history of past ages. These youths were sent 
for trial by the court-martial at Kharpout, and I 
heard that they arrived there safely and asked per- 
mission to embrace the Moslem faith. This was 
to escape from contemptuous treatment by the 
Kurds, and not from the fear of death, as their con- 
version would not save them from the penalty if 
they were shown to deserve it. Before their de- 
parture they asked me what I had heard about them, 



Episodes in the original are here omitted. — Translator. 



22 Martyred Armenia 

and whether the authorities purposed to kill them 
on the way or not. After enquiring about this, and 
ascertaining that they would not be killed in this 
way, I informed them accordingly; they were re- 
joiced, saying that all they desired was to remain 
alive to see the results of the war. They said that 
the Armenians deserved the treatment which they 
had received, as they would never see the necessity 
for taking precautions against the Turks, believing 
that the constitutional Turkish Government would 
never proceed to measures of this kind without valid 
reason. The Government has perpetrated these 
deeds although no official, Kurd, Turk, or Moslem, 
has been killed by an Armenian, and we know not 
what the weighty reasons may have been which 
impelled them to so unprecedented a measure. And 
if the Armenians should not be reproached with a 
negligence for which they have paid dearly, yet a 
people who do not take full precautions are liable 
to be taxed justly with blameworthy carelessness. 

My Travelling-Compai^ions. — From time to time 
I visited the men who had been in my company 
during the journey, but after my release the director 
of the prison would not permit me to go to them. 
I used, therefore, to ask for one of them and talk 
with him outside the prison in which the Armenians 
were confined. After a while I enquired for them 
and was told that they had been sent to execution, 
like others before them, and at this I cried out in 
dismay. One day I saw a gendarme who had been 
imprisoned with us for a short time on the charge 
of having stolen articles from the effects of dead 
Armenians, and as he knew my companions I asked 
him about them. He said that he had killed the 



Martyixd Armenia 23 

priest Isaac with his own hand, and that the gen- 
darmes had laid wagers in firing at his clerical head- 
dress. ''I made the best shooting, hit the hat and 
knocked it off his head, finishing him with a second 
ball.'' My answer was silence. The man firmly 
believed that these murders were necessary, the 
Sultan having so ordered. 

The Sale of Lettess. — When the Government 
first commenced the deportation of the 700 men, 
the officials were instructed to prepare letters, 
signed with the names of the former, and to send 
them to the families of the banished individuals in 
order to mislead them, as it was feared that the Ar- 
menians might take some action which would defeat 
the plan and divulge the secret to the other Armeni- 
ans, thus rendering their extermination impractic- 
able. The unhappy families gave large sums to 
those who brought them letters from their Head. 
The Government appointed a Kurd, a noted brig- 
and, as officer of the Militia, ordering him to slaugh- 
ter the Armenians and deliver the letters at their 
destination. When the Government was secure as 
to the Armenians, a man was despatched to kill the 
Kurd, whose name was xiami Hassi, or Hassi Aami. 

Slaughter of the Protestant, Chaldean, and 
Syriac Communities. — The slaughter was general 
throughout these communities, not a single protes- 
tant remaining in Diarbekir. Eighty families of the 
Syriac Community were exterminated, with a part 
of the Chaldeans, in Diarbekir, and in its depend- 
encies, none escaped save those in Madiat and Mar- 
din. When latterly orders were given that only 
Armenians were to be killed, and that those belong- 
ing to other communities should not be touched, the 



24 Martyred Armenia 

Government held their hand from the destruction 
of the latter. 

The Sykiacs. — But the Syriacs in the province 
of Madiat were brave men, braver than all the other 
tribes in these regions. When they heard what had 
fallen upon their brethren at Diarbekir and the 
vicinity they assembled, fortified themselves in three 
villages near Madiat, and made a heroic resistance, 
showing a courage beyond description. The Gov- 
ernment sent against them two companies of regu- 
lars, besides a company of gendarmes which had 
been despatched thither previously; the Kurdish 
tribes assembled against them, but without result, 
and thus they protected their lives, honour, and 
possessions from the tyranny of this oppressive 
Government. An Imperial Iradeh was issued, grant- 
ing them pardon, but they placed no reliance on it 
and did not surrender, for past experience had 
shown them that this is the most false Government 
on the face of the earth, taking back to-day what it 
gave yesterday, and punishing to-day with most 
cruel penalties him whom it had previously par- 
doned. 

CoNVEESATiON betwccu a postal contractor from 
Bitlis and a friend of mine, as we were sitting at a 
cafe in Diarbekir: 

Contractor: I see many Armenians in Diarbekir. 
How comes it that they are stil here? 

My Friend: These are not Armenians, but Syri- 
acs and Chaldeans. 

Contractor: The Government of Bitlis has not 
left a single Christian in that Vilayet, nor in the 
district of Moush. If a doctor told a sick man that 
the remedy for his disease was the heart of a Chris- 



Martyred Armenia 25 

tian lie would not find one though he searched 
through the whole Vilayet. 

Protection Afforded by Kurds to Armenians on 
Payment. — The Armenians were confined in the 
main ward of the prison at Diarbeldr, and from time 
to time I visited them. One day, on waking from 
sleep, I went to see them in their ward and found 
them collecting rice, flour and moneys. I asked 
them the reason of this, and they said: ''What are 
we to do? If we do not collect a quantity every 
week and give it to the Kurds, they insult and beat 
us, so we give these things to some of them so that 
they may protect us from the outrages of their 
fellows.'* I exclaimed, ''There is no power nor 
might but in God,'' and went back grieving over 
their lot. 

Despatch of the Armenians to the Slaughter. — 
This was a most shocking proceeding, appalling in 
its atrocity. One of the gendarmes in Diarbekir 
related to me how it was done. He said that, when 
orders were given for the removal and destruction 
of a family, an official went to the house, counted 
the members of the family, and delivered them to the 
Commandant of Militia or one of the officers of 
Gendarmerie. Men were posted to keep guard over 
the house and its occupants during the night until 
8 o'clock, thereby giving notice to the wretched 
family that they must prepare for death. The 
women shrieked and wailed, anguish and despair 
showed on the faces of all, and they died even be- 
fore death came upon them.* .... After 8 o'clock 
waggons arrived and conveyed the families to a 

* A few sentences of immaterial description are here omitted. — 
Translator. 



26 Martyred Armenia 

place near by, where they were killed by rifle fire, 
or massacred like sheep with knives, daggers, and 

axes. 

Sale of Aemenian Effects, and Eemoval of 
Crosses from the Churches. — After the Armenians 
had been destroyed, all the furniture of their houses, 
their linen, effects, and implements of all kinds, as 
well as all the contents of their shops and store- 
houses, were collected in the churches or other large 
buildings. The authorities appointed committees 
for the sale of these goods, which were disposed of 
at the lowest price, as might be the case with the 
effects of those who died a natural death, but with 
this difference, that the money realised went to the 
Treasury of the Turkish Government, instead of to 
the heirs of the deceased. 

You might see a carpet, worth thirty pounds, sold 
for ^ve, a man's costume, worth four pounds, sold 
for two medjidies, and so on with the rest of the 
articles, this being especially the case with musical 
instruments, such as pianos, etc., which had no value 
at all. All money and valuables were collected by 
the Commandant of Gendarmerie and the Vali, 
Eeshid Bey, the latter taking them with him when 
he went to Constantinople, and delivering them to 
Talaat Bey.* . . . 

The mind is confounded by the reflection that this 
people of Armenia, this brave race who astonished 
the world by their courage, resolution, progress and 
knowledge, who yesterday were the most powerful 
and most highly cultivated of the Ottoman peoples, 
have become merely a memory, as though they had 

*Some remarks in this connection are omitted. — Translator. 



Martyred Armenia 27 

never flourished. Their learned books are waste 
paper, used to wrap up cheese or dates, and I was 
told that one high official had bought thirty volumes 
of French literature for 50 piastres. Their schools 
are closed, after being thronged with pupils. Such 
is the evil end of the Armenian race: let it be a 
warning to those peoples who are striving for free- 
dom, and let them understand that freedom is not 
to be achieved but by the shedding of blood, and 
that words are the stock-in-trade of the weak alone. 

I observed that the crosses had been removed 
from the lofty steeples of the churches, which are 
used as storehouses and markets for the keeping 
and sale of the effects of the dead. 

Methods of Slaughtee. — These were of various 
kinds. An officer told me that in the Vilayet of 
Bitlis the authorities collected the Armenians in 
barns full of straw (or chaif), piling up straw in 
front of the door and setting it on fire, so that the 
Armenians inside perished in the smoke. He said 
that sometimes hundreds were put together in one 
barn. Other modes of killing were also employed 
(at Bitlis). He told me, to my deep sorrow, how 
he had seen a girl hold her lover in her embrace, 
and so enter the barn to meet her death without a 
tremor. 

At Moush, a part were killed in straw-barns, but 
the greater number by shooting or stabbing with 
knives, the Government hiring butchers, who re- 
ceived a Turkish pound each* day as wages. A 
doctor, named Aziz Bey, told me that when he was 
at Marzifun, in the Vilayet of Sivas, he heard that 
a caravan of Armenians was being sent to execution. 
He went to the Kaimakam and said to him: ''You 



28 Martyred Armenia 

know I am a doctor, and there is no difference be- 
tween doctors and butchers, as doctors are mostly 
occupied in cutting up mankind. And as the duties 
of a Kaimakam at this time are also like our own — ■■ 
cutting up human bodies — I beg you to let me see 
this surgical operation myself/' Permission was 
given, and the doctor went. He found four butchers, 
each with a long knife; the gendarmes divided the 
Armenians into parties of ten, and sent them up to 
the butchers one by one. The butcher told the Ar- 
menian to stretch out his neck; he did so, and was 
slaughtered like a sheep. The doctor was amazed 
at their steadfastness in presence of death, not say- 
ing a word, or showing any sign of fear. 

The gendarmes used also to bind the women and 
children and throw them down from a very lofty 
eminence, so that they reached the ground shattered 
to pieces. This place is said to be between Diar- 
bekir and Mardin, and the bones of the slain are 
there in heaps to this day. 

Another informant told me that the Diarbekir 
authorities had killed the Armenians either by shoot- 
ing, by the butchers, or at times by putting numbers 
of them in wells and cave^, which were blocked up 
so that they perished. Also they threw them into 
the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the bodies caused 
an epidemic of typhus fever. Two thousand Arme- 
nians were slaughtered at a place outside the walls 
of Diarbekir, between the Castle of Sultan Murad 
and the Tigris, and ^t not more than half an hour's 
distance from the city. 

Brutality of the Gendarmes and Kurdish Tribes. 
— There is no doubt that what is related as to the 
proceedings of the gendarmes and the Kurdish 



Martyred Armenia 29 

tribes actually took place. On receiving a caravan 
01 Armenians the gendarmes searched them one by 
one, men and women, taking any money they might 
find, and stripping them of the better portions of 
their clothing. When they were satisfied that there 
remained no money, good clothes, or other things of 
value, they sold the Armenians in thousands to the 
Kurds, on the stipulation that none should be left 
alive. The price was in accordance with the number 
of the party; I was told by a reliable informant of 
cases where the price had varied between 2,000 and 
200 liras. 

After purchasing the caravans, the Kurds 
stripped all the Armenians, men and women, of their 
clothes, so that they remained entirely naked. They 
then shot them down, every one, after which they 
cut open their stomachs to search for money 
amongst the entrails, also cutting up the clothing, 
boots, etc., with the same object. 

Such were the dealings of the official gendarmerie 
and the Kurds with their fellow-creatures. The 
reason of the sale of the parties by the gendarmes 
was to save themselves trouble, and to obtain deliv- 
ery of further parties to plunder of their money. 

Woe to him who had teeth of gold, or gold-plated. 
The gendarmes and Kurds used to violently draw 
out his teeth before arriving at the place of execu- 
tion, thus inflicting tortures before actual death. 

A KuKDisH Agha Slaughters 50,000 Armenians. 
— A Kurd told me that the authorities of Kharpout 
handed over to one of the Kurdish Aghas in that 
Vilayet, in three batches, more than 50,000 Arme- 
nians from Erzeroum, Trebizond, Sivas, and Con- 
stantinople, with orders to kill them and to divide 



30 Martyred Armenia 

with themselves the property which he might take 
from them. He killed them all and took from them 
their money and other belongings. He hired 600 
mules for the women, to convey them to Urfa, at 
the rate of three liras a head. After receiving the 
price, he collected mules belonging to his tribe, 
mounted the women on them, and brought them to 
a place between Malatiya and Urfa, where he killed 
them in the most barbarous way, taking all their 
money, clothes, and valuables. 

The Violation of Women befoke oe after 
Death. — * .... 

Incident of the Sheikh and the Girl. — ^I said 
above that the Armenian women were sent off in 
batches under guard of gendarmes. Whenever they 
passed by a village the inhabitants would come and 
choose any they desired, taking them away and giv- 
ing a small sum to the gendarmes. At one place a 
Kurd of over 60 picked out a beautiful girl of 16. 
She refused to have an^^thing to do with him, but 
said she was ready to embrace Islam and marry a 
youth of her own age. This the Kurds would not 
allow, but gave her the choice between death and the 
Sheikh ; she still refused, and was killed. 

Barsoum AoHA.—Whilst I was Kaimakam of the 
district of Kiakhta, in the Vilayet of Kharpout, I 
was acquainted with an Armenian Notable of that 
place, named Barsoum Agha. He was a worthy 
and courageous man, dealing well with Kurds, 
Turks, and Armenians, without distinction; he also 
showed much kindness to officials who were dis- 
missed from their posts in the district. All the Kur- 

* I refrain from particulars. The gendarmes and Kurds are stated 
to have been the perpetrators of these acts. — Translatoe. 



Martyred i\rmenia 31 

dish Aghas thereabouts kept close watch over him, 
hating him because he was their rival in the suprem- 
acy of the place. When, after my banishment, I 
arrived at Sivrek and heard what had befallen the 
Armenians, I enquired about him and his family. 
I was told that when the Government disposed of 
the Armenians of Kiakhta he was summoned and 
ordered to produce the records of moneys owing 
to him (Kurds and Armenians in that district owed 
him a sum of 10,000 liras) ; he replied that he had 
torn up the records and released his debtors from 
their obligations. He was taken away with the other 
Armenians, and on arrival at the Euphrates he 
asked permission to drown himself. This was 
granted, and he endeavoured to do so, but failed, as 
he could not master himself. So he said to the gen- 
darmes, ''Life is dear and I cannot kill myself, so 
do as you have been ordered,'' whereupon one of 
them shot him and then killed the rest of the family. 
Narrative of a Young Turk. — This youth, who 
had come to Diarbekir as a schoolmaster, told me 
that the Government had informed the Armenians 
of Broussa that their deportation had been decided, 
and that they were to leave for Mosul, Syria, or El- 
Deir three days after receiving the order. After 
selling what they could, they hired carts and car- 
riages for the transport of their goods and them- 
selves and started — as they thought — for their des- 
tination. On their arrival at a very rugged and 
barren place, far distant from any villages, the 
drivers, in conformity with their instructions, broke 
up the conveyances and left the people in the waste, 
returning in the night to plunder them. Many died 
there of hunger and terror ; a great part were killed 



32 Martyred Armenia 

on the road; and only a few reached Syria or El- 
Deir. 

Children Perishing of Hunger and Thirst. — An 
Arab of El-Jezira, who accompanied me on my 
flight from Diarbekir, told me that he had gone with 
a Sheikh of his tribe, men and camels, to buy grain 
from the sons of Ibrahim Pasha El-Mellili. On 
their way they saw 17 children, the eldest not more 
than 13 years old, dying of hunger and thirst. The 
Arab said : ^ * We had with us a small water-skin and 
a little food. When the Sheikh saw them he wept 
with pity, and gave them food and water with his 
own hands; but what good could this small supply 
do to them? We reflected that if we took them with 
us to the Pasha, they would be killed, as the Kurds 
were killing all Armenians by order of the authori- 
ties ; and our Arabs were at five days ' distance from 
the place. So we had no choice but to leave them 
to the mercy of God, and on our return, a week 
later, we found them all dead.'' 

Narrative of a Provincial Governor. — ^We were 
talking of the courage and good qualities of the 
Armenians, and the Governor of the place, who was 
with us, told us a singular story. He said : *^ Accord- 
ing to orders, I collected all the remaining Arme- 
nians, consisting of 17 women and some children, 
amongst whom was a child of 3 years old, diseased, 
who had never been able to walk. When the butch- 
ers began slaughtering the women and the turn of 
the child's mother came, he rose up on his feet and 
ran for a space, then falling down. We were aston- 
ished at this, and at his understanding that his 
mother was to be killed. A gendarme went and took 
hold of him, and laid him dead on his dead mother. ' ' 



Martyred Armenia 33 

He also said that he had seen one of these women 
eating a piece of bread as she went np to the butcher, 
another smoking a cigarette, and that it was as 
though they cared nothing for death. 

Narrative of Shevket Bey. — Shevket Bey, one of 
the officials charged with the extermination of the 
Armenians, told me, in company with others, the 
following story: ''I was proceeding with a party, 
and when we had arrived outside the walls of Diar- 
bekir and were beginning to shoot down the Arme- 
nians, a Kurd came up to me, kissed my hand, and 
begged me to give him a girl of about ten years old. 
I stopped the firing and sent a gendarme to bring 
the girl to me. When she came I pointed out a spot 
to her and said, * Sit there. I have given you to this 
man, and you will be saved from death.' After a 
while, I saw that she had thrown herself amongst 
the dead Armenians, so I ordered the gendarmes to 
cease firing and bring her up. I said to her, *I have 
had pity on you and brought you out from among 
the others to spare your life. Why do you throw 
yourself with them? Go with this man and he will 
bring you up like a daughter. ' She said : ^ I am the 
daughter of an Armenian ; my parents and kinsfolk 
are killed among these ; I will have no others in their 
place, and I do not wish to live any longer without 
them.' Then she cried and lamented; I tried hard 
to persuade her, but she would not listen, so I let her 
go her way. She left me joyfully, put herself be- 
tween her father and mother, who were at the last 
gasp, and she was killed there.'' And he added: 
''If such was the behaviour of the children, what 
was that of their elders?" 

Price of Armenian Women. — ^A reliable inform- 



34 Martyred Armenia 

ant from Deir-el-Zur told me that one of the officials 
of that place had bought from the gendarmes three 
girls for a quarter of a medjidie dollar each. An- 
other man told me that he had bought a very beauti- 
ful girl for one lira, and I heard that among the 
tribes Armenian women were sold like pieces of old 
furniture, at low prices, varying from one to ten 
liras, or from one to five sheep.* . . . 

The Mutes aeeif and the Aemenian Girl. — On 
the arrival of a batch of Armenians at Deir-el-Zur 
from Eas-el-Ain, the Mutesarrif desired to choose a 
servant-girl from amongst the women. His eye fell 
on a handsome girl, and he went up to her, but on 
his approach she turned white and was about to 
fall. He told her not to be afraid, and ordered his 
servant to take her to his house. On returning 
thither he asked the reason for her terror of him, 
and she told him that she and her mother had been 
sent from Eas-el-Ain in charge of a Circassian gen- 
darme, many other Armenian women being with 
them. On the way, the gendarme called her mother, 
and told her to give him her money, or he would kill 
her ; she said she had none, so he tortured her till she 
gave him six liras. f . . . He said to her: ^'You 
liar! You [Armenians] never cease lying. You 
have seen what has befallen, and will befall, all 
Armenians, but you will not take warning, so I shall 
make you an example to all who see you. ' ' Then he 
cut off her hands with his dagger, one after the 
other, then both her feet, all in sight of her daugh- 
ter, whom he then took aside and violated, whilst her 
mother, in a dying state, witnessed the act. ^ ' And 

* An unimportant anecdote omitted. — Translator. 
f Unfit for reproduction. — Translator. 



Martyred Armenia 35 

when I saw you approach me, I remembered my 
mother's fate and dreaded you, thinking that you 
would treat me as the gendarme treated my mother 
and myself, before each other's eyes."* . . 

''The Eewakd of Hard Labour." — The Turks had 
collected all those of military age and dispersed 
amongst the battalions to perform their army serv- 
ice. When the Government determined on the de- 
portation and destruction of the Armenians — as 
stated in their official declaration — orders were 
given for the formation of separate battalions of 
Armenians, to be employed on roads and municipal 
works. The battalions were formed and sent to the 
roads and other kinds of hard labour. They were 
employed in this manner for eight months, when the 
severity of winter set in. The Government, being 
then unable to make further use of them, despatched 
them to Diarbekir. Before their arrival, the officers 
telegraphed that the Armenian troops were on their 
way, and the authorities sent gendarmes, well fur- 
nished with cartridges, to meet the poor wretches. 
The gendarmes received them with rifle-fire, and 
840 men perished in this manner, shot close to the 
city of Diarbekir. 

A Caravan of Women. — t • . . 

A Night's Shelter for Fifty Pounds. — The man 
who showed the greatest capacity for exterminating 
Armenians was Eeshid Bey, the Vali of Diarbekir. 
I have already stated how many were killed in his 



* Unimportant anecdote omitted.— Translator. 

f Unimportant. The writer describes the inhabitants of Diarbekir, 
on the arrival of a party, as hastening to select women. Two doctors 
pick out twenty of them to serve as hospital attendants. — Trans- 
lator. 



36 Martyred Armenia 

Vilayet. When news of his removal arrived, the 
remaining Armenians, and the Christians generally 
rejoiced, and shortly after the report was current 
some Armenians, who had hidden themselves, came 
out from their concealment and walked about the 
city. The Vali, who was anxious to keep his re- 
moval secret and to inspire terror, began deport- 
ing Armenians with still greater energy, and those 
who had come out returned to their hiding-places. 
One of the principal men of Diabekir stated that one 
Armenian had paid fifty Turkish pounds to an in- 
habitant for shelter in his house during the night 
before the Vali's departure, and another told me 
that a man had received an offer of three pounds 
for each night until the same event, but had re- 
fused from fear of the authorities. 

Chastity of the Aemenian Women. — * .... 
An Arab of the Akidat told me that he was going 
along the bank of the Euphrates when he saw some 
of the town rabble stripping two women of their 
clothes. He expostulated and told them to restore 
the clothes, but they paid no attention. The women 
begged for mercy, and finding it unavailing they 
threw themselves into the river, preferring death to 
dishonour. He told me also of another woman who 
had a suckling child, and begged food from the 
passers-by, who were in too great fear of the author- 
ities to help her. On the third day of starvation, 
finding no relief, she left the baby in the market of 
El-Deir and drowned herself in the Euphrates. In 

* An official relates how he wantcc" to choose a servant from a 
boatload of victims, vsrho said they were willing to come as servants, 
but as nothing else. He took one, and on coming home one night 
drunk he tried to offer her violence; she reproved him in suitable 
terms and he conducted himself well thenceforward. — Translator. 



Martyred Armenia 37 

this way do they show high qualities, honour, and 
courage such as many men do not possess. 

Women-Sekvants in Diarbekik. — You cannot en- 
ter a house in Diarbekir without finding from one 
to five Armenian maid-servants, even the hum- 
blest shopkeepers having one, who probably in the 
lifetime of her parents would not have condescended 
to speak a word to the master whom she now has to 
serve in order to save her life. It is stated that the 
number of such women and girls in the city is over 
5,000, mostly from Erzeroum, Kharpout and other 
Vilayets. 

Narrative of Shahin Bey. — Shahin Bey, a man 
of Diarbekir, who was in prison with me, told me 
that a number of Armenian men and women were 
delivered to him for slaughter, he being a soldier. 
He said: ^^ Whilst we were on the way, I saw an 
Armenian girl whom I knew, and who was very 
beautiful. I called her by name, and said ' Come, I 
will save you, and you shall marry a young man of 
your country, a Turk or a Kurd. ' She refused, and 
said : ^If you wish to do me a kindness I will ask one 
thing which you may do for me. ' I told her I would 
do whatever she wished, and she said: ^I have a 
brother, younger than myself, here amongst these 
people. I pray you to kill him before you kill me, so 
that in dying I may not be anxious in mind about 
him.'- She pointed him out and I called him. When 
he came, she said to him, ^My brother, farewell. I 
kiss you for the last time, but we shall meet, if it be 
God's will, in the next world, and He will soon 
avenge us for what we have suffered.' They kissed 
each other, and the boy delivered himself to me. I 
must needs obey my orders, so I struck him one 



38 Martyred Armenia 

blow with an axe, split his skull, and he fell dead. 
Then she said: 'I thank you with all my heart, and 
shall ask you one more favour'; she put her hands 
over her eyes and said: 'Strike as you struck my 
brother, one blow, and do not torture me/ So I 
struck one blow and killed her, and to this day I 
grieve over her beauty and youth, and her wonderful 
courage. ' ' 

Photogeaphs of Ahmenians lying in the road, 
dressed in turbans, for despatch to Constantinople. 
The Turkish Government thought that European 
nations might get to hear of the destruction of the 
Armenians and publish the news abroad so as to 
excite prejudice against the Turks. So after the 
gendarmes had killed a number of Armenian men, 
they put on them turbans and brought Kurdish 
women to weep and lament over them, saying that 
the Armenians had killed their men. They also 
brought a photographer to photograph the bodies 
and the weeping women, so that at a future time 
they might be able to convince Europe that it was 
the Armenians who had attacked the Kurds and 
killed them, that the Kurdish tribes had risen 
against them in revenge, and that the Turkish Gov- 
ernment had had no part in the matter. But the 
secret of these proceedings was not hidden from 
men of intelligence, and after all this had been done, 
the truth became known and was spread abroad in 
Diarbekir. 

Conversion of Armenian Women to Islam. — • 
When the Government undertook the extermination 
of the Armenians some of the women went to the 
Mufti and the Kadi, and declared their desire to 
embrace the Mohammedan faith. These authorities 



Martyred Armenia 39 

accepted their conversion, and they were married to 
men of Diarbekir, either Turks or Kurds. 

After a while, the Government began to collect 
these women, so the Mufti and the Kadi went to the 
Vali and said that the women in question were no 
longer Armenians, having become Mussulmans, and 
that by the Sacred Law the killing of Mussulman 
women was not permissible. The Vali replied: 
^^ These women are vipers, who will bite us in time 
to come; do not oppose the Government in this 
matter, for politics have no religion, and the Gov- 
ernment know what they are about.'' The Mufti 
and the Kadi went back as they had come, and the 
women were sent to death. After the removal of 
the Vali — in consequence, as it was said, of abuses 
in connection with the sale of effects left in Arme- 
nian houses and shops — orders arrived that the con- 
version of any who desired to enter Islam should be 
accepted, be they men or women. Many of the Ar- 
menians who remained, of both sexes, hastened to 
embrace the Faith in the hope of saving their lives, 
but after a time they were despatched likewise and 
their Islamism did not save them. 

The Germans and the Armenians. — Whenever 
the talk fell on the x^rmenians I used to blame the 
Turks for their proceedings, but one day when we 
were discussing the question, an official of Diarbekir, 
who was one of the fanatical Young Turk National- 
ists, said: ''The Turks are not to blame in this mat- 
ter, for the Germans were the first to apply this 
treatment to the Poles, who were under their rule. 
And the Germans have compelled the Turks to take 
this course, saying that if they did not kill the Ar- 



40 Martyred Armenia 

menians there would be no alliance with them, and 
thus Turkey had no choice. * ' 

This is what the Turk said, word for word. And 
it was confirmed by what I heard from a Turk who 
was imprisoned with me at Aaliya, on the charge of 
corresponding with Abdul-Kerim el-Khalil. He said 
that when passing through Damascus he had visited 
the German Vice-Consul there, who had told him 
confidentially that Oppenheim had come on a special 
mission, which was to incite Jemal Pasha to perse- 
cute the Arabs, with a view to causing hatred be- 
tween the two races, by which the Germans might 
profit in future if differences arose between them 
and the Turks. This was a short time previous to 
the execution of Abdul-Kerim. 

The Killing of the Two Kaimakams. — ^When the 
Government at Diarbekir gave orders to the officials 
to kill the Armenians, a native of Baghdad was 
Kaimakam of El-Beshiri, in that Vilayet, and an 
Albanian was Kaimakam of Lijeh. These two tele- 
graphed to the Vilayet that their consciences would 
not permit them to do such work, and that they 
resigned their posts. Their resigiaations were 
accepted, but they were both secretly assassinated. 
I investigated this matter carefully, and ascertained 
that the name of the Baghdad Arab was Sabat Bey 
El-Sueidi, but I could not learn that of the Albanian, 
which I much regret, as they performed a noble act 
for which they should be commemorated in his- 
tory. . . .* 

* The writer here describes how a Turkish judge (Tcddi), to whom 
the office of Kaimakam was entrusted after the murder of Sabat Bey, 
boasted in conversation that he had killed four Armenians with his 
own hand. ''They were brave men,*' he said, ''having no fear of 
death, ' ' — Translator. 



Martyred Armenia 41 

An Akmenian Betkays His Nation. — * . . . 

The Sultan's Order. — Whilst I was in prison, a 
Turkish Commissioner of Police used to come to 
see a friend of his, who was also imprisoned. One 
day when I and this friend were together, the Com- 
missioner came, and, in the course of conversation 
about the Armenians and their fate, he described to 
us how he had slaughtered them, and how a number 
had taken refuge in a cave outside the city, and he 
had brought them out and killed two of them him- 
self. His friend said to him: ''Have you no fear 
of God? Whence have you the right to take life 
in defiance of God^s lawf He replied: ''It was 
the Sultan's order; the Sultan's order is the order 
of God, and its fulfilment is a duty." 

Armenian Death Statistics. — At the end of 
August, 1915, I was visited in prison by one of my 
Diarbekir colleagues, who was an intimate friend 
of one of those charged with the conduct of the 
Armenian massacres. We spoke of the Armenian 
question, and he told me that, in Diarbekir alone, 
570,000 had been destroyed, these being people from 
other Vilayets as well as those belonging to Diar- 
bekir itself. 

If to this we add those killed in the following 
months, amounting to about 50,000; and those in 
the Vilayets of Bitlis and Van and the province of 
Moush, approximately 230,000; and those who per- 
ished in Erzeroum, Kharpout, Sivas, Stamboul, 

* The author tells the story of an Armenian of Diarbekir who gave 
information to the police against his own people, disclosing their 
hiding places. He saw him walking about the streets with an insolent 
demeanor, giving himself the airs of a person of great importance. 
He considers that such a traitor to his nation deserves the worst form 
of death. — Translator. 



42 Martyred Armenia 

Trebizond, Adana, Broussa, Urfa, Zeitomi, and 
Aintab — estimated at upwards of 350,000 — we arrive 
at a total of Armenians killed, or dead from disease, 
hunger, or thirst, of 1,200,000. 

There remain 300,000 Armenians in the Vilayet 
of Aleppo, in Syria, and Deir-el-Zur (those deported 
thither), and in America and Egypt and elsewhere; 
and 400,000 in Roumelian territory, held by the 
Balkan States, thus making a grand total of 
1,900,000. 

The above is what I was able to learn as to the 
statistics of the slaughtered Armenians, and I would 
quote an extract from El-Mohattam, dealing with 
this subject: 

^*The Basle correspondent of the Temps states 
that, according to official reports received from 
Aleppo in the beginning of 1916, there were 492,000 
deported Armenians in the districts of Mosul, Diar- 
bekir, Aleppo, Damascus, and Deir-el-Zur. The 
Turkish Minister of the Interior, Talaat Bey, esti- 
mates the number of deportees at 800,000, and states 
that 300,000 of these have been removed or have 
died in the last few months^ 

^* Another caculation gives the number of de- 
ported Armenians as 1,200,000 souls, and states that 
at least 500,000 have been killed or have died in 
banishment'' {El-Mohattam, May 30th, 1916). 

The Armenians and the Arab Tribes. — As I 
approached Diarbekir, I passed through many Arab 
tribes, with whom I saw a number of Armenians, 
men and women, who were being well treated, al- 
though the Government had let the tribes know that 
the killing of Armenians was a bounden duty. I did 
not hear of a single instance of an Armenian being 



Martyi'ed Armenia 43 

murdered or outraged by a tribesman, but I heard 
that some Arabs, passing by a well into which men 
and women had been thrown, drew them out when 
at the last extremity, took them with them, and 
tended them till they were recovered. 

The Akab and the Armenian Beggar 
Woman. — .... 

The narrative concludes with the relation of an instance of courage- 
ous charity on the part of a Baghdad soldier to an Armenian v7onian 
begging in the streets of Diarbekir. — Translator. 



CONCLUSION 



CONCLUSION 

IF the Turkish Government were asked the reasons 
for which the Armenian men, women, and chil- 
dren were killed, and their honour and property 
placed at any man^s mercy, they would reply that 
this people have murdered Moslems in the Vilayet 
of Van, and that there have been found in their pos- 
session prohibited arms, explosive bombs, and 
indications of steps towards the formation of an 
Armenian State, such as flags and the like, all point- 
ing to the fact that this race has not turned from its 
evil ways, but on the first opportunity will kill the 
Moslems, rise in revolt, and invoke the help of Eus- 
sia, the enemy of Turkey, against its rulers. That 
is what the Turkish Government would say. I have 
followed the matter from its source. I have en- 
quired from inhabitants and officials of Van, who 
were in Diarbekir, whether any Moslem had been 
killed by Armenians in the town of Van, or in the 
districts of the Vilayet. They answered in the nega- 
tive, saying that the Government had ordered the 
population to quit the town before the arrival of the 
Eussians and before anyone was killed; but that 
the Armenians had been summoned to give up their 
arms and had not done so, dreading an attack by the 
Kurds, and dreading the Government also ; the Gov- 
ernment had further demanded that the principal 
Notables and leading men should be given up to 

47 



4B Conclusion 

them as hostages, but the Armenians had not com- 
plied. 

All this took place during the approach of the 
Eussians towards the city of Van. As to the adja- 
cent districts, the authorities collected the Arme- 
nians and drove them into the interior, where they 
were all slaughtered, no Government official or pri- 
vate man, Turk or Kurd, having been killed. 

As regards Diarbekir, you have read the whole 
story in this book, and no insignificant event took 
place there, let alone murders or breaches of the 
peace, which could lead the Turkish Government to 
deal with the Armenians in this atrocious manner. 

At Constantinople, we hear of no murder or other 
unlawful act committed by the Armenians, except 
the unauthenticated story about the twenty bravoes, 
to which I have already referred. 

They have not done the least wrong in the Vil- 
ayets of Kharpout, Trebizond, Sivas, Adana, or Bit- 
lis, nor in the province of Moush. 

I have related the episode at Zeitoun, which was 
unimportant, and that at Urfa, where they acted in 
self-defence, seeing what had befallen their people, 
and preferring death to surrender. 

As to their preparations, the flags, bombs and the 
like, even assuming there to be some truth in the 
statement, it does not justify the annihilation of 
the w^hole people, men and women, old men and chil- 
dren, in a way which revolts all humanity and more 
especially Islam and the whole body of Moslems, 
as those unacquainted with the true facts might 
impute these deeds to Mohammedan fanaticism. 

To such as assert this it will suffice to point out 
the murders and oppressive acts committed by the 



Martyred Armenia 49 

Young Turks against Islam in Syria and Mesopo- 
tamia. In Syria they have hanged the leading men 
of enlightenment, without fault on their part, such 
as Shukri Bey El-Asli, Abdul-Wahhab Bey El- 
Inglizi, Selim Bey El-Jezairi, Emir Omar El-Hus- 
seini, Abdul-Ghani El-Arisi, Shefik Bey El-Mowey- 
yad, Rushdi Bey El-Shamaa, Abdul-Hamid El- 
Zahrawi, Abdul-Kerim El-Khalil, Emir Aarif El- 
Shehabi, Sheikh Ahmed Hasan Tabara, and more 
than thirty leading men of this class. 

I have published this pamphlet in order to refute 
beforehand inventions and slanders against the faith 
of Islam and against Moslems generally, and I 
affirm that what the Armenians have suffered is to 
be attributed to the Committee of Union and Pro- 
gress, who deal with the empire as they please; it 
has been due to their nationalist fanaticism and their 
jealousy of the Armenians, and to these alone; the 
Faith of Islam is guiltless of their deeds. 

From the foregoing we know that the Armenians 
have committed no acts justifying the Turks in in- 
flicting on them this horrible retribution, unprece- 
dented even in the dark ages. What, then, was the 
reason which impelled the Turkish Government to 
kill off a whole people, of whom they used to say 
that they were their brothers in patriotism, the prin- 
cipal factor in bringing about the downfall of the 
despotic rule of Abdul-Hamid and the introduction 
of the Constitution, loyal to the Empire, and fight- 
ing side by side with the Turks in the Balkan war? 
The Turks sanctioned and approved the institution 
of Armenian political societies, which they did not 
do in the case of other nationalities. 



50 Conclusion 

What is the reason of this sudden change of atti- 
tude? 

It is that, previous to the proclamation of the 
Constitution, the Unionists hated despotic rule ; they 
preached equality, and inspired the people with 
hatred of the despotism of Abdul-Hamid. But as 
soon as they had themselves seized the reins of 
authority, and tasted the sweets of power, they 
found that despotism was the best means to confirm 
themselves in ease and prosperity, and to limit to 
the Turks alone the rule over the Ottoman peoples. 
On considering these peoples, they found that the 
Armenian race was the only one which would resent 
their despotism, and fight against it as they pre- 
viously fought against Abdul-Hamid. They per- 
ceived also that the Armenians excelled all the other 
races in arts and industries, that they were more ad- 
vanced in learning and societies, and that after a 
while the greater part of the officers of the army 
would be Armenians. They were confounded at 
this, and dreaded what might ensue, for they knew 
their own weakness and that they could not rival the 
Armenians in the way of learning and progress. 
Annihilation seemed to them to be the sole means 
of deliverance; they found their opportunity in a 
time of war, and they proceeded to this atrocious 
deed, which they carried out with every circum- 
stance of brutality- — a deed which is contrary to the 
law of Islam, as is shown by many precepts and his- 
torical instances.* .... 

In view of this, how can the Turkish Government 



* Fa 'iz El-Ghusein here gives a list of citations from the Koran, 
the Traditions, and from Moslem history in support of this view. — 

Translator. 



Martyi'ed Armenia 51 

be justified at the present time in killing off an en- 
tire people, who have always paid their dues of 
every kind to the Ottoman State, and have never 
rebelled against it? Even if we suppose the Ar- 
menian men to have been deserving of death, what 
was the offence of the women and children? And 
what will be the punishment of those who killed them 
wrongfully and consumed the innocent with fire! 

I am of opinion that the Mohammedan peoples 
are now under the necessity of defending them- 
selves, for unless Europeans are made acquainted 
with the true facts they will regard this deed as a 
black stain on the history of Islam, which ages will 
not efface. 

From the Verses, Traditions, and historical in- 
stances, it is abundantly clear that the action of the 
Turkish Government has been in complete contra- 
diction to the principles of the Faith of Islam; a 
Government which professes to be the protector of 
Islam, and claims to hold the Khildfat, cannot act in 
opposition to Moslem law ; and a Government which 
does so act is not an Islamic Government, and has 
no rightful pretension to be such. 

It is incumbent on the Moslems to declare them- 
selves guiltless of such a Government, and not to 
render obedience to those who trample under foot 
the Verses of the Koran and the Traditions of the 
Prophet, and shed the innocent blood of women, old 
men and infants, who have done no wrong. Other- 
wise they make themselves accomplices in this crime, 
which stands unequalled in history. 

In conclusion, I would address myself to the 
Powers of Europe, and say that it is they them- 
selves who have encouraged the Turkish Govern- 



52 Conclusion 

ment to this deed, for they were aware of the evil 
administration of that Government, and its barbar- 
ous proceedings on many occasions in the past, but 
did not check it. 

Completed at Bomhay on the Srd September, 
1916. 

FAIZ EL-GHUSEIN. 



E D - 7 5. 



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b * ^ ' ^^M\ A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

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